John F. Walsh, III: Value of iDisability Platform and Impact of AI

At Highmark Health, we believe what makes us unique makes us better. Our differences broaden our perspectives and foster a variety of skills to complement each other, creating a stronger and more vibrant workforce. It's this belief that earned us recognition as the Best Place to Work for the 10th year for individuals with disabilities in a survey by the American Association of People with Disabilities and Disability:IN. We'll continue to celebrate and benefit from the inclusion of all people. To find out more, visit highmarkhealth.org. Welcome to Disability Matters with your host Joyce Bender. All comments, views, and opinions expressed on the show are solely those of the host, guest, and callers. Now the host of Disability Matters, here's Joyce Bender.

Hi everyone, I am Joyce Bender. Welcome to Disability Matters. Hope you're having a great day. And if you're in the United States, as you get ready for the Fourth of July, 250-year celebration, July 4th, drive carefully and please take some spray bottle of water, drink a lot of water because it is going to be brutally hot in D.C., but unfortunately in other states like mine in Pennsylvania, across the country. So just be careful. Be, be careful. And I just also want to add that every show I talk about a country. You know, I have countries all over the world and it keeps getting bigger. That listen to this show. And thank you, thank you, thank you, all of you. So awesome. You remember what I said? Share, share, get other people onto this show because quality of life and employment is needed everywhere in the world. But I always focus on one company and then our number two company. So our one company, Mo— country, Mozambique. Mozambique. Thank you to that one person listening to the show. One. One can make a difference. Just remember when I started My idea of Bender. There wasn't a Bender, so there wasn't even a one. There was me, Paula, and Mary. So one can change the world. Thank you. And then, hey, what can I say? Singapore, you are awesome. You keep getting larger every week and you are right behind, yes, The United States. Singapore, keep it going. Thank you, whoever is out there listening right now. I really appreciate it so much. And let's make a pact. Let's work together to spread that news in Singapore to more people with disabilities to listen to this show because, you know, I'm on a crusade. Quality of life and employment. So make sure you spread the news. And of course, to my listeners in the United States and the Americas, where would I be without you? You're all so wonderful. Hi, Mark, sponsor of the show, greatest company in America for people with disabilities. Really just a great, great company, period. Thank you, David Holmberg. And thank you, Karen Hanlon and everyone else in leadership, sponsor of this show for years. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And Yoshiko Dart, special shout out to you. I'll never forget you, Yoshiko. Never forget you. Lead on, Yoshiko. Take care of yourself. We all need you. And, you know, today I have to tell you, I was real— I am very excited about the show because one of my favorite people is on the show. But in addition to that, my partner in crime with iDisability, John Walsh, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Joyce. Always a pleasure to be here with you.

So John is the CEO of iDisability. But let's go back in time. He's Mr. C-suite. No matter what multi-billion-dollar corporation he worked at, he was at the top running a country, Denmark, for computer sciences corporation. And then every company he went to, no matter which one, he'd call me and say, hey, we need to hire people with disabilities from you. Because He hired people with disabilities from me at CSC and always supported the Bender Leadership Academy. He also serves on the board of the Bender Leadership Academy. He's an advisory board member to the Bender Consulting Services Advisory Board and the treasurer of the American Association of people with disabilities on the board. So, I mean, you can see how beyond blessed we are to have him as the CEO. But although I gave sort of a paraphrased version there, John, why don't you tell everyone about your background?

Sure. No, I'm a Southern California boy, grew up in San Diego, and got a couple degrees in electrical engineering and worked for the US government for about 9 years and then joined CSC in 2000, which is when I met you, Joyce. Uh, Ress Owen, one of our longtime friends and a work colleague of mine, of my boss at the time, actually introduced us, and we started hosting the Bender Leadership Academy classes at our facility there, uh, and, uh, and started working with you to hire people with disabilities and just kept doing that the 16 years I was at CSC. And And like you said, everywhere else I went, it was always okay. After a few 60, 90 days of figuring out what needed to be fixed and turn around, it was okay, need to get some new talent in. And I called you up and we got to work. So, uh, you know, it's been a great, uh, journey. I've been very fortunate to work with great people that you've, uh, introduced me to and hired. And so it's always been a pleasure working with you and excited to be part of iDisAbility. Something that It's really filling a huge gap in the market. You know, having worked in, in hiring people and, and finding talent, um, it's kind of the fear of the unknown. You don't know what the right or wrong way to do things when it comes to disabilities. And 25% of us on the Earth have a disability, so it's something that all of us can learn for our personal lives as well as just all the issues and concerns that happen when when you're trying to get to work, and a lot of the barriers that unfortunately still exist today.

Well, Andy Houghton, the other founder, so I'm the founder, co-founder with Andy Houghton of iDisability, and Andy came to me years ago and said, "I have this idea, this e-training program that would go on the LMS system, training people about communicating with people with disabilities." But I wanted to be a Bender product because you're very well known and Bender Consulting Services is a national company. And so, of course, I agreed. I was very happy to be able to partner with Andy and he is still a partner. But then we needed a CEO. We did. Because we need someone to take the reins and move us forward, which Jon has. And Jon, for people listening to the show that have never heard about iDisability, could you share with everyone what the product is?

Absolutely. No, it's— iDisability is a digital learning platform focused on disability awareness, ADA compliance, accessibility, employment, customer engagement, and inclusion. It's really designed to help leaders and train leaders and hiring managers and employees and even customers-facing teams, HR professionals, and even partner companies how to effectively make sure that the compliance, engagement, and retention, kind of the three pillars we see to the path to productivity collectively, is really the way we do it. So most of the barriers come come from a lack of knowledge. You know, in my experience at work, people just don't know what they don't know. And so this really fills a huge gap in the market where nobody has really done the work that iDisability, you and the team before I arrived and certainly after, we've developed and matured the content to really help people understand, you know, all the nuances of a variety of disabilities and the ways to make sure you're compliant legally and how to increase retention and how to make sure you're taking care of accommodations correctly. How do you interview people in the right ways? And just, you know, if you don't know, then you have the fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, you know, and uncertainty about the ADA itself, the law, and then the changes that are even happening in the upcoming couple years here that are going to be affecting companies and governments here in the United States, certainly. And other legislation around the world. And then just the, you know, digital world we're in, you know, just unfortunately last year, uh, 2025 got worse. It was already bad. I think 94.8% of the internet was inaccessible. Now we're up to 95.7%. So we're going the wrong way, even with just homepages, let alone all the other, you know, ways that we do work, like we hear on a call here, a video conference here on Zoom and YouTube. All those things to be thought of, you know, accessibility happens every day at work by every person in the company. And unless you train them, they don't know how to do it right. And so you can have all the audits and compliance and documentation, but if people don't know what to do, it's not going to get done. So training's the gap, and you in particular having hired people and you know, working with you for years, us working together to get my team up to speed on all the nuances of doing it the right way. You've really done a great job identifying a gap there, and that's why I'm excited to be part of it, because it's such a game changer for companies to really engage people correctly. And, you know, those folks that are looking for gainful employment, competitive employment, and, you know, let's— why not make it a better world for both sides?

Yes, you know, John, even a computer sciences, no matter where it is, I always say human resources may know, you know, procurement, a group of us involved in disability, we know. But that doesn't mean all the other, you know, 100,000 employees or whatever you have understands. This is what I always tell companies. They'll say, and I'm talking to human resources, I know that, we know that, this person, yeah, you're in human resources and procurement. But tell me about that manager in a rural area you have. Tell me what he knows or she knows. And example, CSC. Two examples. First, I get this call from Lee Ann, my chief of staff now, but prior to that, human resources partner in Delaware. She calls me and she says, Joyce Bender, this management team is concerned about something. They want you to come down. I said, well, I'm not sure, but it's something to do with blindness. I said, okay, because we had placed someone in development there that was a person who is blind. So I get there and this one manager says to me, you know, we see Jim struggling at the soda pop machine. And we wanted to know, like, what would you do in that case? I said, well, what would you do if I would be struggling at the machine? I would say, do you need help? Yep, that's it. Bingo. That's the answer. But what I mean is not out of hatred, just ignorance, you know, not knowing. Um, you know, we had one person, they didn't understand that you could have a dog, this one company, that you could have a dog with you. I mean, there's so many things, uh, in Canada. I got a call from this one manager and they said, "Do we really, does that person really need the dog every day?" I said, "Yes, he is. Not that every other day he can see. He's totally blind. He needs the dog every day." But once again, don't be thinking that I'm meaning that, you know, "Oh, how terrible these people are." They don't know what they don't know. Exactly right.

Yeah.

And if you think about all the things people create just every day that can cause challenges for people with disabilities, it's, you know, just a PowerPoint or a PDF. I mean, these are things that people work on every day that are created by your teams inside a company that, not done well, could create accessibility problems and even legal problems for you. So it's really a It's really a target-rich environment, I'll say, you know, to really up the water level, I think, of everybody's understanding. And like I said, 1 out of 4 people, as you know, have a disability. So if you want to engage, you know, everybody on Earth, why not take the time to learn a little bit about it? And these modules that we have are 15 minutes or less, easy to consume on any platform. And really leave-behinds so you can have a little cheat sheet with you if you're going to do an interview or things like that. So it's really an easy way and fully accessible, by the way, learning platform. So anybody can take the classes. So it's really an exciting time in the disability world to have something like this to really educate everybody.

And in addition, some companies have outsourced, this type of work, you know, recruiting minorities or any group because of them downsizing. Okay, so that's iDisability.

Yeah, no, it's absolutely close the gap.

iDisability with a brain, which we'll find out about in a little bit. But that's iDisability. We can do that. We can be your outsourcing choice. Uh, and, and John, I know we focus on compliance, engagement, and retention. Could you explain those three focus groups?

Absolutely. Now, well, compliance, you know, to me is kind of the lowest threshold, right? At the end of the day, you need to follow the law, and unfortunately, you know, just 95% of people's homepages are not compliant. So that tells you there's some work to do. And it just, you know, looking at the facts, you know, because I look at the statistics of what's going on in compliance, there was a 27% increase in 2025 in legal cases associated with compliance, again, digital accessibility. So law and laws are changing here in the next couple years, as you know, your training, our training will describe for you. So, you know, cost of non-compliance can be very expensive— lawsuits, legal fees, settlement costs. You have to do emergency remediation. And then, of course, you're going to lose customers, employees, and then just the brand reputational damage can be huge. So here it's all about educating people on what are the laws, what do you need to follow, and give you the tools that you can, you know, make sure that your team is educated on what compliance looks like. From engagement perspective, it's really about, you know, at the end of the day, we all, when we want to be part of something, want to be seen, respected, and equipped to participate fully in the work environment. And so a lot of this has to do with making sure that people can access the tools, the meetings, the training systems, that they can access your learning management system, the HR portal, the internal dashboard, your collaboration platform. Meeting content even. So it's really about making sure that you have an open environment and that builds trust, meaning that you're making sure that everybody in your organization can access everything that the company is doing. And same with customers, right? If customers can't get your website, and right now that's a problem. There's quite a— absolutely a big move. There's statistics around this, over 78% of customers who are having accessibility problems will go somewhere else. And by the way, their friends and family, when they hear about it, go somewhere else too. So that's just in the United States, you know, over a trillion dollars worth of buying power going somewhere else because your website isn't right, as a simple example. And then you get into all the nuances inside a company and everything else. So engagement is important for both your employees but also your And then that just, you know, obviously tied right to retention. So, and people worry about things like, oh, I have to make accommodations for people and I don't know what that is, whether it's a customer, a partner company you're working with, or an employee. And at the end of the day, the average cost is $300. So, I mean, this is not something to worry about. It's just educate. Educate, educate. And all of that tied together really drives productivity. And if you look, there's a great report from Accenture that talks about how much more revenue, how much more profitable, how much more growth companies that address this accessibility and inclusion for making sure that people with disabilities can be engaged and retained and productive makes a huge difference. And no surprise, given it's 25% of the population. You may not think you have— I'm sure when you look at your statistics inside any company, I've been in many, you're going to say, "Oh, we have a few percent of people with disabilities." No, you don't. A quarter of them have a disability or more or a little bit less. But in general, 1 out of 4 people you talk to have one. And it comes back to the stigmas and worries that people with disabilities have. From disclosing their disabilities and just the culture in your company, no matter how hard you try, people will still be a little skeptical around making sure that, you know, what are the repercussions? Because statistically there are repercussions. So anyway, it's a— those are the three legs of the stool, Joyce, that kind of bring together increased productivity and output and profit and growth for companies and organizations.

Yeah, and you know, compliance. Okay, there could be some request that someone with a disability makes. Maybe they're a little person and they say, "I need a chair." And you say, "Well, wait, we have this chair. Let me adjust the height, see if it works." I knew I could think of a million examples, not just that, but There are times you're able to do this, but then on the other hand, there are times someone asks for an accommodation and they don't receive it. That's why you have to understand compliance. And that's what I love about iDisability. We go through myths, we go through accommodations, uh, we go through, uh, emergency management systems. I mean, we go through everything. So John's right, what he said, and I just wanted to jump on with that. Well, John, look, here's this book. Wait, I gotta show you this and all of our viewers this book. Okay. This is how people are afraid of AI. It says, if anyone builds it, everyone dies. And, you know, there are just people that philosophically have these views about AI taking over the world and taking over humans and all of this. But I just want to say, you know, they're thinking they may be moving towards a cure for pancreatic cancer. Which of all cancers, we know how deadly that is. Um, and that they've been moving toward a way to help with Alzheimer's, but they already have right now the way to predict a problem that's in your system, your DNA, that you could have in the future heart attack. But if you know this, You're going to take action now. What I'm saying is there are bad things, but there are also good things. Just like the internet, there are good things, but there are really, really bad things. It's both. But what is your opinion about that, John? What do you think?

No, I think you're right on. I mean, just like anything new, first of all, people hate change. It's just human nature, right? So, you know, you think about back in the day when there were buggies and horses and then the car came along. Yeah, it was dangerous at the beginning. There were no seat belts, there weren't airbags. But over time, you know, the technology was refined and laws came into place and legislation was put in place to control and make sure that those products were safe every year as you went on, even to the point where Volvo was trying to have zero fatalities in their cars for a year, right? So that's a, that's a very ambitious and thoughtful, you know, way to think. Same thing with AI or the internet, right? It can be used for good and bad, just like anything. Any tool that a human gets their hands on can be used for good or bad. For me, I'm, I'm an optimist. I'm also in technology. I also spend— I advise several AI companies through an advisory firm I have for years. I've helped many of these AI technologies thoughtfully enter the market. And it, and, you know, one of the big things that a lot of people are talking about is the regulation that needs to be put in place. But as a human participating in this in the world, and I have several AI tools I use myself for my daily work today, I use them to augment my work, not replace my work. And not do my work for me. But the way to think about AI as an employee, as a student, as somebody entering the workforce is learn a little bit about AI. It's coming, period. And take some time. There's plenty of free artificial intelligence subscriptions out there today to just learn how to work with it and prompt it is the word they use. To ask it the right questions in the right way, to give it the context. And context is super important so it knows how to answer the question correctly when you ask the question. So that's some advice for just a skill that everybody needs to learn. But when you look at people's work, we do very complex work. Every role that's out there, some can be automated easier than others. It's always been true. But at the end of the day, there's some creative work. There's some work that requires human behavior, just noticing micro expressions and human behavior and body language and all the moving parts of just interacting with a human, let alone all the nuances of the context of a conversation, the context of the situation you're in. That's very hard and a long way away from being automated by AI. So Humans will, you know, you may have 27 things you do in your job every day, and some subset of those, probably the things you don't want to do because they're repetitive and easy to do, would be things that AI would be taking over over time. So yeah, and just in safety, you know, just pro tip here, don't, of course, like you wouldn't put your private information out on the internet, don't put it inside AI either. Because while it is protected, it just again can be exposed, just like you see passwords are hacked every day.

Yeah, that's right. And I tell that to young people with disabilities. Don't go on this social media and put your private information out there. Because with AI today, first of all, everybody knows everything about you. Now everybody knows because of Google and everything and X and AI. But don't put your— don't make it simple. Don't put your address out there.

Yeah, I'm excited about it. I mean, if done right, I mean, AI can really help people with disabilities, right? If you just think about summarizing complex information, creating captions and transcripts, supporting communication, helping with reading and writing, personal personalize learning, right? People learn in different ways. Improving the assistive technology itself. But importantly, just thinking about, you know, some of the bias around hiring tools that are out there, inaccessible chatbots, automated systems that don't understand even what an accommodation is. You know, just are things where, you know, if we're not careful, just like the internet's going the wrong way accessibility-wise from homepages, on the web, AI, you know, we have an opportunity here to build it in right. And that comes back to, again, education, right? If everybody understands the nuances and ways to design technology and tools for humans to use in an accessible way up front, it's a lot easier than trying to fix it later.

Yes. And you know, for young people with disabilities, Well, any young person, but specifically we're talking to young people with disabilities that listen to this show. Start like reading about it and maybe start using it, you know, know what you're doing first. But Karen Hanlon, who will soon next year be the CEO at Highmark, told me at least learn something about it. Learn about ChatGPT. Learn about something. And that's what you should do. If you're afraid, go get a book. The ones I get, something, something for dummies. Uh, but get a book, read, or go on the internet. You can go on the internet, go on Google and look for information. Uh, you gotta learn something. But it is time for the news. It is time for, yes, my favorite person, Jennifer Mathis. Mathis on the mic. I just love that, Mathis on the mic. Thank you, Holly O'Donnell, for coming up with that. Jennifer, welcome to the show.

Thank you.

Well, Jennifer, Jennifer, you have a lot of things you could talk about today, but we— because of last week, I wonder if you could go back to Olmsted. Yeah. Talk about what happened. I know Bazelon has been fantastic, uh, putting out information about this, but would you mind reviewing that with our listeners?

That was exactly what I was going to talk about today. So, On June 18th, on a Thursday, at the end of the day before a holiday weekend, the Justice Department released a memo from the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. The Office of Legal Counsel is basically a component within DOJ and They often will provide opinions, sometimes informal opinions, sometimes formal opinions, often when different agencies are looking for a resolution on a point of law, and OLC might be asked to weigh in, sometimes within DOJ, different components are looking to understand an issue and understand the law and ask OLC to weigh in. This was an opinion that was issued at the request of people in the White House, and it was released publicly. And what it does is it opines on the integration mandate of the ADA Title II, the public services, state and local government services provisions, and of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. Now, the integration mandate is a part of those laws that says People with disabilities have the right to receive services in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs. There are defenses from that, and you have to be qualified, and it can't be something that would fundamentally alter, fundamentally change a state service system. But that right, that integration mandate, has been in the law for at this point about 50 years. It was in the HHS— was then HEW regulations back in 1977, and it has been in HHS regulations ever since. It has been in the Justice Department's ADA regulations since they were issued in the early 1990s, and The Supreme Court, as many people know, looked at this issue in the Olmstead case and affirmed that it is a form of discrimination based on disability under the ADA to unnecessarily segregate or unnecessarily institutionalize people with disabilities. And so that has been established law for decades now. And what this memo says, departing from past Justice Department interpretations for the last almost 30 years, um, is that there is no integration mandate under either Title II of the ADA or Section 504. So states do not have to worry about ensuring that they are serving people with disabilities in their own homes and communities. There is no community integration requirement, and if there were such a requirement, that it would likely be unconstitutional. So this is a radical, radical departure from where the government, the federal government has been under every administration Democratic administrations, Republican administrations for decades. And it is, you know, ironic because the federal government and the Justice Department in particular was really the lead enforcer of Olmstead in recent years. So this is a far-out, really extreme, unexpected interpretation. It basically says It has a very narrow interpretation of what the Supreme Court said in Olmstead, and it parses it apart in a way that would be unrecognizable to anyone who has actually read the Olmstead case. And it says that it only is about unjustified institutionalization, and what is unjustified is an open question. And basically the only time that it would ever be unjustified to institutionalize a person with a disability as if it was solely, solely based on a person's disability status and there is no other reason that the state can possibly come up with, like resources, administrative convenience, you name it. And so essentially it makes Olmstead a nullity. This is a really big deal. People should be concerned. I want to point out this is an OLC memo at this point. It is not the law because in order for it to be the law, it would have to be something that a court said or Congress said. Congress makes the laws. Agencies do not make the laws. Courts interpret the laws. The Supreme Court has actually pretty recently said that Courts interpret the laws and agencies do not. Agencies do not get deference in interpreting the law. So it is not the law. It is important for people to understand that your rights have not gone away. States do still have obligations to serve people with disabilities in the most integrated setting appropriate. But people need to understand this. People need to pay attention. And right now there are some things that people can do. Number one, I think people should be making public statements about this. We have seen public statements from many, many groups in the disability community. It is important to have a public outcry when the government does something like this to make clear to people, um, in the government how upset people are across all walks of life and across all political stripes. Um, it is important for people to speak out, to do op-ed pieces, to make their voices heard. It is a good thing to contact your members of Congress to let them know that they should speak out, um, whatever party they are from. And it is important to let your state leadership know, your governor in particular, and maybe the attorney general, but really the governor. It is very important for them to hear just how upset people are about this, because it is states in some cases who are going to go who are going to take those arguments and who are going to start raising them. And so we need to make sure that they understand that there will be hell to pay if that happens. And the other set of things that can happen is the federal government, certainly they're going to stop enforcing Olmstead. Presumably they're going to shut down all the cases that they have right now. But They need to understand too, there are different ways that they could do this and they could be more aggressive or less aggressive. So they need to hear, everybody needs to hear how big a deal this is, how upset people are. And the government also may do rulemaking. They may change the rules, the current regulations on the integration mandate. That's down the road. We can expect that that might happen. And we'll talk more about that if it does.

May I just say, so that everyone understands this, okay, I have epilepsy. And let's say, you know, let's envision I live in a rural area and I'm on Medicaid. Now, I have to get to that state office at a certain time. I don't know if it's once a year or how often it is, but I have to get there. And I have to register and say what I'm doing now. And if I'm looking for a job or, you know, what's going on on a regular basis or you're cut off. Okay, well, I don't drive. And there are a lot of people, they don't have access. And then there are elderly people. Oh my goodness. My mother and dad are not living, but if they were, I mean, this would be— this is hard for us to understand.

Yes, indeed.

So you're going to end up seeing a lot of people, you know, off Medicaid. And then I don't know what the heck will happen to the hospitals. But I do have one question that I can't figure out. Okay. No Medicaid. So what's happening to nursing homes?

Right. Well, I mean, that's a good point. So we are now in an era where because We've had, or we'll have, $1 trillion worth of Medicaid cuts. There are going to be budget shortfalls in every state. It is an extraordinarily, extraordinarily difficult financial environment right now for state and local governments. And so of course, institutional care is the most expensive kind of care that there is. So the idea that states are gonna start institutionalizing people right now, it seems pretty far out there. But what is gonna happen? I don't know. I mean, if states cut, and one of the fears is that states will cut community services because they're looking for things to cut. They have these budget shortfalls. They cut those community services And they figure the next person in office is going to deal with the back end and the cost when people go into institutions and it costs 3 to 5 times as much. But that's how things happen.

You know what I mean? A lot of people in nursing homes, how do they pay for Medicaid? Yes, Medicaid is the main payer. So I'm meaning if they don't have— where would they go? You know what? Where would they go? What institutions would they be in? But then someone said to me, maybe there's going to be like a cutout or something for like nursing homes that they don't apply. I don't know.

Oh, you mean for the Medicaid work requirements?

Yes.

Yeah. I mean, for Medicaid work requirements, right? I mean, that's, um, yeah, I think people may, I mean, people will not end up being subject to the work requirements potentially if they're in a place like a nursing home.

Yeah, that's what I mean. Right, right. Oh, okay, everyone, you always listen to Jennifer. So you've got an outcry. Not just, you know, the Bushes, they were such big supporters of people with disabilities. And, you know, follow through with all of these things. You've got to speak up. You have to go out and talk publicly in any groups you're involved with, call radio shows, of course, call your congressman and senator. But this is serious. You've got to speak up. And maybe on the next show, I'm going to have Listeners send in questions and send them to you ahead of time, Jennifer, that you can answer.

Sure. Happy to do that.

Okay. All right. Well, hey, you have a good day. Have a good holiday.

Thank you. You too.

Okay. John, boy, somebody, I guess we know what we'll be talking about. AOP, don't we? I have a question. What is Ask Joyce?

That is our new exciting AI digital mind twin. So we've— for everybody listening here, what we've done is we've taken all of Joyce's lifetime of knowledge and all the information that we have in our iDisability iDisability training and have trained a digital mind twin of Joyce Bender. What does that mean? That means that you'll be able to click a button, call Joyce Bender, you'll talk to Joyce Bender. It'll sound just like Joyce Bender, as close as you can make it, but it sounds very much like Joyce Bender right now. And we're going to keep training it and it'll get better and better over time. But we're launching that as part of our iDisability set of offerings. As another way to interact with our training. Right, right now we have nice bite-sized, you know, on average 11 minutes of modules. We have 11 hours of training in total and growing. And so that's a lot to take. And so we thought that it would be, again, just keeping up with technology, but also giving another way to interact with the knowledge and that Joyce Bender has and the training that has been put together, another way to interact. So just think about it as, you know, hey, I've got a question or a last-minute question before an interview, or you're a marketing person, you want to know how to make a campaign accessible, you're a manager and you don't remember every detail on how to interview somebody who's blind, or you just have some other questions that you, you know, if you're preparing for an event and you just want to make sure you're thinking about everything, you'll be able to click a button, talk to Joyce, ask questions 24/7, 365, uh, and that'll be available through iDisability, uh, coming up this month in July. So we're excited about that. We're getting it, uh, tuned and ready to go, and by the end of the month, well, for the Disability:IN conference, if you're going, uh, we'll have it there and you can see it person, but we're excited.

Oh, it's so exciting. I can't wait to say hi, everyone. Ask Joyce, it's me. I can't wait. I mean, I am so excited about this. Thanks to John's innovation. Here we are. We have this product that now has AI. How awesome is that? I mean, we have artificial intelligence. That is so great. And also, John, what is— what if you are a small company? We'll say maybe a not-for-profit. They only have 10 employees, but they somehow want to see one of the modules or purchase one module. Can you—

Yeah, no, this is another exciting— yeah, this is another exciting thing. Thing we've been working on over the past year, you know, year, is now we have— historically, just for awareness, we've only been able to deploy iDisability in large organizations into their learning management systems. So we have 4 million and growing end users and large organizations around the world. And, uh, but, uh, you know, what about everybody else? This again goes back to accessibility and engagement and making sure everybody can participate. So we now are excited to announce that this month again— so it's a big month for us, you know, celebrating ADA and Disability Pride and everything else— we're going to be opening up a storefront where anybody on Earth can take a class, one class, all the classes, follow learning paths around how to hire people, how to be compliant, whatever where your learning path is. There'll be discounted courses you can take. And so we're super excited about getting that up and running again. We launched here in the next week or two, and, and that's open. So we'll stay tuned for an announcement there in the market. If you want to check on us, it's, you know, idisability.com, and you'll be able to go there and you'll see a link and it can take you right to our storefront and We're excited about that as another way to again engage everybody. So if you have a small group of people, you're just starting a company and want to make sure what you're building is accessible. If you're, you know, an army of one in your little consulting firm like I've had in my past, you want to know how to do something the right way. Now there's a way to do that. So super excited to have that as another option.

Oh, that is a great option. Yes, that is. And I'm so excited about it because now Dobbies, all these different organizations that are very small, will have access to it, which, which is so great. And I guess Pride Disability, is that how we're celebrating Disability Pride Month?

Yes, actually we're going to have some discounted pricing we'll announce after the holidays here to introduce Ask Joyce and the new learning management options that we have for smaller organizations. So look out for that, and absolutely want to celebrate together all of the progress and, and work to do still in this space. So again, look out for those announcements shortly, but yes, we'll have Ask Joyce, and again, a way to access all of the learning content as an individual or a small organization moving forward.

Yeah. And we are, we're right here. Nothing about us without us. We are celebrating at Bender Consulting, Bender Leadership Academy, and iDisability, Disability Pride Month. You all know I live with epilepsy and I'm hard of hearing. I'm all about quality of life for people living with disabilities, and we are going to be celebrating in D.C. at AAPD. So listen, if you're going to the AAPD gala, you'll see us there. I'll look forward to seeing you. And if you're going to be at the Disability and Conference, I am speaking and attending, as John is, so We'll look forward to seeing you there. Get in touch with us if you want to get together while we're there, but we're very excited about both of the events. And if you want to get a sneak preview, how do you do that? If someone's listening right now and they say, oh, I would love to see a demo, what do we do?

Just go on to idisability.com. You can just type your name in and request a demo and we'll set it up. Happy to do it.

Okay.

Or reach out to me directly on LinkedIn or any of the other social media I'm on. You'll just find me out there, John Walsh III at iDisability, and happy to set it up.

John Walsh III, W-A-L-S-H, jwalsh@benderconsult.com. And you have an iDisability site too, right?

That's right, www.idisability.com, and then my email is jwalsh, W-A-L-S-H-I-I-I, at idisability.com.

One more time, John.

That's John Walsh, J-W-A-L-S-H-I-I-I, at idisability.com.

And we hope to hear from you. Absolutely.

Love to show you what we're doing. Absolutely.

If you say to me, well, Joyce, what's the main thing you're trying to achieve. Employment. There has to be a reason that, uh, 70% of people with disabilities, and sadly rising, are not counted in the workforce. Why? What do I believe? Once again, it's not hatred. It's stigma. It's ignorance. It's lack of understanding. It's myths, perceptions. Misperceptions you have. And I believe that with education, you can break down a lot of that stigma. And that is where my heart and soul is. Eye disability leading to competitive employment. So please follow us. And you know what else? Share this show, share this podcast. With other people that you think would be interested in this product. And I just can't wait to see you. I can't wait to be there. I can't wait to see you. But with that, John, thank you so much for being on the show today. You know how I feel about you. I love you. And I can't wait till we break down these walls of stigma.

Absolutely. I'd love to see, you know, to celebrate this month, it would be great to see some action, right? So take some action, take a class, learn a little bit this month. Just every little bit helps lift the water level and help everybody understand a little bit more about the opportunities and challenges that we face here, but, uh, excited to be part of it.

Yes, uh, that is right. Well, we end every show with a quote, and today that quote is, competitive jobs mean freedom. That is the logo at Bender Consulting Services. This is Joyce Bender, a America's Voice: Where Disability Matters at voiceamerica.com. See you all next week. And in the words of Mary Brocker, remember, choose joy. You won't be disappointed when you choose joy. See you then.

Voice America would like to thank you for tuning in. Please join us next Tuesday at 11 AM Pacific time and 2 PM Eastern time for another installment of Disability Matters right here on the Voice America Variety Channel. We are the leader in live internet talk radio. VoiceAmerica.com.